updating the content for this guide

author: bwarsaw <> 2004-12-14 14:14:32 +0000
committer: bwarsaw <> 2004-12-14 14:14:32 +0000
commit: a3a7b94b04974c40bca54caece474e8506d53822 (patch)
tree: bb447beeccdfa07a18082a99929ea7eb9f85cf9e /admin/www/mailman-admin/node11.html
parent: d497f1c251bff2eae3bce19d183a4bd988fe37e4 (diff)
download: mailman2-a3a7b94b04974c40bca54caece474e8506d53822.tar.gz
mailman2-a3a7b94b04974c40bca54caece474e8506d53822.tar.xz
mailman2-a3a7b94b04974c40bca54caece474e8506d53822.zip
1 files changed, 145 insertions, 138 deletions
diff --git a/admin/www/mailman-admin/node11.html b/admin/www/mailman-admin/node11.html
index 3ab9bf19..e74f8792 100644
--- a/admin/www/mailman-admin/node11.html
+++ b/admin/www/mailman-admin/node11.html
@@ -1,190 +1,197 @@
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+<title>2.1.2 Reply-To header munging</title>
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-<H3><A NAME="SECTION002311000000000000000">
-3.1.1 General list personality</A>
+<H3><A NAME="SECTION002212000000000000000">
+2.1.2 Reply-To header munging</A>
 </H3>
 
 <P>
-These variables, grouped under the general list personality section,
-control some public information about the mailing list.
+This section controls what happens to the <span class="mailheader">Reply-To:</span>
+headers of messages posted through your list.
 
 <P>
-<DL>
-<DT><STRONG>real_name</STRONG></DT>
-<DD>Every mailing list has both a <i>posting name</i> and a <i>real
-    name</i>.  The posting name shows up in urls and in email addresses,
-    e.g. the <code>mylist</code> in <code>mylist@example.com</code>.  The posting
-    name is always presented in lower case, with alphanumeric
-    characters and no spaces.  The list's real name is used in some
-    public information and email responses, such as in the general
-    list overview.  The real name can differ from the posting name by
-    case only.  For example, if the posting name is <code>mylist</code>, the
-    real name can be <code>Posting</code>.
+Beware!  <span class="mailheader">Reply-To:</span> munging is considered a religious issue
+and the policies you set here can ignite some of the most heated
+off-topic flame wars on your mailing lists.  We'll try to stay as
+agnostic as possible, but our biases may still peak through.
 
 <P>
-</DD>
-<DT><STRONG>owner</STRONG></DT>
-<DD>This variable contains a list of email addresses, one address per
-    line, of the list owners.  These addresses are used whenever the
-    list owners need to be contacted, either by the system or by end
-    users.  Often, these addresses are used in combination with the
-    <code>moderator</code> addresses (see below).
+<span class="mailheader">Reply-To:</span> is a header that is commonly used to redirect
+replies to messages.  Exactly what happens when your uses reply to
+such a message depends on the mail readers your users use, and what
+functions they provide.  Usually, there is both a ``reply to sender''
+button and a ``reply to all'' button.  If people use these buttons
+correctly, you will probably never need to munge
+<span class="mailheader">Reply-To:</span>, so the default values should be fine.
 
 <P>
-</DD>
-<DT><STRONG>moderator</STRONG></DT>
-<DD>This variable contains a list of email addresses, one address per
-    line, of the list moderators.  These addresses are often used in
-    combination with the <code>owner</code> addresses.  For example, when
-    you email <code>mylist-owner@example.com</code>, both the owner and
-    moderator addresses will receive a copy of the message.
+Since an informed decision is always best, here are links to two
+articles that discuss the opposing viewpoints in great detail:
 
 <P>
-</DD>
-<DT><STRONG>description</STRONG></DT>
-<DD>In the general list overview page, which shows you every available
-    mailing list, each list is displayed with a short description.
-    The contents of this variable is that description.  Note that in
-    emails from the mailing list, this description is also used in the
-    comment section of the <span class="mailheader">To:</span> address.  This text should
-    be relatively short and no longer than one line.
+
+<UL>
+<LI><a class="ulink" href="http://www.unicom.com/pw/reply-to-harmful.html"
+  >Reply-To Munging Considered
+      Harmful</a>
+</LI>
+<LI><a class="ulink" href="http://www.metasystema.org/essays/reply-to-useful.mhtml"
+  >Reply-To Munging Considered
+      Useful</a>
 
 <P>
-</DD>
-<DT><STRONG>info</STRONG></DT>
-<DD>This variable contains a longer description of the mailing list.
-    It is included at the top of the list's information page, and it
-    can contain HTML.  However, blank lines will be automatically
-    converted into paragraph breaks.  Preview your HTML though,
-    because unclosed or invalid HTML can prevent display of parts of
-    the list information page.
+</LI>
+</UL>
 
 <P>
-</DD>
-<DT><STRONG>subject_prefix</STRONG></DT>
-<DD>This is a string that will be prepended to the
-    <span class="mailheader">Subject:</span> header of any message posted to the list.
-    For example, if a message is posted to the list with a
-    <span class="mailheader">Subject:</span> like:
+The three options in this section work together to provide enough
+flexibility to do whatever <span class="mailheader">Reply-To:</span> munging you might
+(misguidingly :) feel you need to do.
 
 <P>
-<dl><dd><pre class="verbatim">
-    Subject: This is a message
-</pre></dl>
+<DL>
+<DT><STRONG>first_strip_reply_to</STRONG></DT>
+<DD>This variable controls whether any <span class="mailheader">Reply-To:</span> header
+    already present in the posted message should get removed before
+    any other munging occurs.  Stripping this header will be done
+    regardless of whether or not Mailman will add its own
+    <span class="mailheader">Reply-To:</span> header to the message.
 
 <P>
-and the <code>subject_prefix</code> is <code>[My List] </code> (note the
-    trailing space!), then the message will be received like so:
+If this option is set to <em>No</em>, then any existing
+    <span class="mailheader">Reply-To:</span> header will be retained in the posted
+    message.  If Mailman adds its own header, it will contain
+    addresses which are the union of the original header and the
+    Mailman added addresses.  The mail standards specify that a
+    message may only have one <span class="mailheader">Reply-To:</span> header, but that
+    that header may contain multiple addresses.
 
 <P>
-<dl><dd><pre class="verbatim">
-    Subject: [My List] This is a message
-</pre></dl>
+</DD>
+<DT><STRONG>reply_goes_to_list</STRONG></DT>
+<DD>This variable controls whether Mailman will add its own
+    <span class="mailheader">Reply-To:</span> header, and if so, what the value of that
+    header will be (not counting original header stripping - see
+    above).
+
+<P>
+When you set this variable to <em>Poster</em>, no additional
+    <span class="mailheader">Reply-To:</span> header will be added by Mailman.  This
+    setting is strongly recommended.
 
 <P>
-If you leave <code>subject_prefix</code> empty, no prefix will be added
-    to the <span class="mailheader">Subject:</span>.  Mailman is careful not to add a
-    prefix when the header already has one, as is the case in replies
-    for example.  The prefix can also contain characters in the list's
-    preferred language.  In this case, because of vagarities of the
-    email standards, you may or may not want to add a trailing space.
+When you set this variable to <em>This list</em>, a
+    <span class="mailheader">Reply-To:</span> header pointing back to your list's posting
+    address will be added.
+
+<P>
+When you set this variable to <em>Explicit address</em>, the value
+    of the variable <code>reply_to_address</code> (see below) will be
+    added.  Note that this is one situation where
+    <span class="mailheader">Reply-To:</span> munging may have a legitimate purpose.  Say
+    you have two lists at your site, an announce list and a discussion
+    list.  The announce list might allow postings only from a small
+    number of approved users; the general list membership probably
+    can't post to this list.  But you want to allow comments on
+    announcements to be posted to the general discussion list by any
+    list member.  In this case, you can set the <span class="mailheader">Reply-To:</span>
+    header for the announce list to point to the discussion list's
+    posting address.
 
 <P>
 </DD>
-<DT><STRONG>anonymous_list</STRONG></DT>
-<DD>This variable allows you to turn on some simple anonymizing
-    features of Mailman.  When you set this option to <i>Yes</i>,
-    Mailman will remove or replace the <span class="mailheader">From:</span>,
-    <span class="mailheader">Sender:</span>, and <span class="mailheader">Reply-To:</span> fields of any
-    message posted to the list.
-
-<P>
-Note that this option is simply an aid for anonymization, it
-    doesn't guarantee it.  For example, a poster's identity could be
-    evident in their signature, or in other mail headers, or even in
-    the style of the content of the message.  There's little Mailman
-    can do about this kind of identity leakage.
+<DT><STRONG>reply_to_address</STRONG></DT>
+<DD>This is the address that will be added in the
+    <span class="mailheader">Reply-To:</span> header if <code>reply_goes_to_list</code> is set
+    to <em>Explicit address</em>.
+
+<P>
 </DD>
 </DL>
 
 <P>
 
 <DIV CLASS="navigation">
-<p><hr>
+<div class='online-navigation'>
+<p></p><hr />
 <table align="center" width="100%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="2">
 <tr>
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 <td align="center" width="100%">GNU Mailman - List Administration Manual</td>
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+<td class='online-navigation'><a rel="contents" title="Table of Contents"
+  href="contents.html"><img src='contents.png'
+  border='0' height='32'  alt='Contents' width='32' /></A></td>
+<td class='online-navigation'><img src='blank.png'
+  border='0' height='32'  alt='' width='32' /></td>
+<td class='online-navigation'><img src='blank.png'
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 </tr></table>
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-<b class="navlabel">Next:</b> <a class="sectref" HREF="node12.html">3.1.2 Reply-To header munging</A>
-<hr>
-<span class="release-info">Release 2.1, documentation updated on October 2, 2004.</span>
+<div class='online-navigation'>
+<b class="navlabel">Previous:</b>
+<a class="sectref" rel="prev" href="node10.html">2.1.1 General list personality</A>
+<b class="navlabel">Up:</b>
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+<b class="navlabel">Next:</b>
+<a class="sectref" rel="next" href="node12.html">2.1.3 Umbrella list settings</A>
+</div>
+</div>
+<hr />
+<span class="release-info">Release 2.1, documentation updated on December 13, 2004.</span>
 </DIV>
 <!--End of Navigation Panel-->
author	bwarsaw <>	2004-12-14 14:14:32 +0000
committer	bwarsaw <>	2004-12-14 14:14:32 +0000
commit	a3a7b94b04974c40bca54caece474e8506d53822 (patch)
tree	bb447beeccdfa07a18082a99929ea7eb9f85cf9e /admin/www/mailman-admin/node11.html
parent	d497f1c251bff2eae3bce19d183a4bd988fe37e4 (diff)
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